SAMACHAR - MARCH, 2022       Submission on Framework for Fairness Assessment of Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning Systems IAMAI made a submission to the Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) on Framework for Fairness Assessment of Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning Systems. Considering the nascent stage of AI in the country, IAMAI suggested that Authorities should maintain a light touch, risk based regulatory approach for AI applications. Prior to implementing any regulatory guidance in this regard, government should hold extensive industry consultations. While third party audits are relevant in many situations, they should not be considered as default, given the risks associated with sharing of confidential datasets (which constitute proprietary information for many of our member companies). Sharing of algorithms and datasets with various third parties increase the risk of mishandling of data and potential leaks. Hence, audits that compel sharing of data should be avoided as much as possible. In exceptional cases where harm actually occurs, extant horizontal laws are sufficient to address issues of liability and/or compensation to affected persons.     Submission on Data Accessibility and Use Policy, 2022 IAMAI made a submission to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on the India Data Accessibility and Use Policy, 2022 (DAUP). The submission highlighted that the definition is broad enough to include personal information (PI) and business data collected by the government under statutory mandates. There is a need for adequate privacy safeguards relating to the data collected by the government to maintain confidentiality. IAMAI urged that Section 92 of the Data Protection Bill, 2021 (DP Bill 2021) or any other law seeking to govern NPD of private entities should not mandate the sharing of NPD with the government. IAMAI said that to prevent accidental disclosure of data, combination with other datasets, reidentification, and other risks, it was crucial that there were safeguards built into the DAUP. The anonymization standards should be based on consultation with experts in these areas, including standards organizations, researchers, and relevant industry players. IAMAI also suggested that all HVDs should be available free of charge, in machine readable formats, provided via APIs, where relevant, and bulk downloadable.     Contribution to the Venture Capital Expert Committee Under Finance Ministry In the latest budget session, the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the formation of a Venture Capital Expert Committee to suggest measures for reviewing the regulatory framework for the venture capital and private equity industry in India. In this context IAMAI made a submission to the Finance Minister and to the Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) requesting that IAMAI be allowed to contribute to the expert committee through nominating members and making suggestions.     Information on Crypto-assets Of late India is witnessing both a deep curiosity and a lively debate over crypto-assets. Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) through its Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council has undertaken a project to publish a series of papers to empower all stakeholders with objective information on crypto-assets. IAMAI collaborated with thinktank Esya Centre to prepare the first paper of the series, titled "Crypto-Assets: What are they and how should they be classified in India?" The report is a comprehensive curtain raiser on the subject and explains to the reader what crypto-assets are, their categories and classifications, the technology in which crypto-assets are embedded so on and so forth. At the same time the paper discusses positive and negative aspects of approaches taken by different institutions and jurisdictions to define and classify them in India, and how with right kind of regulations crypto-assets may be leveraged to develop skills and create significant livelihood-opportunities.     Office Bearers @ Payments Council of India (PCI) Vishwas Patel, Director, Infibeam Avenues, has been re-elected as the chairman of the Payments Council of India (PCI), which functions under the aegis of IAMAI, as the representative body of payment systems industry in India. This was decided at the Executive Council meeting of the PCI, held on March 8, 2022. The council appointed two new cochairs at the meeting: Ms. Praveena Rai, COO, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Mr. MN Srinivasu, Cofounder and Director, Billdesk. Chairs and cochairs of PCI's seven different committees were also nominated at the meeting. The new Executive council will focus on issues such as KYC, prevention of fraud and customer awareness. It will align its efforts with the RBI Vision Document to appropriately respond to complex regulatory and policy issues facing the payments sector.     Proposal to RBI for Standardization of Payment Processing Icons Responding to a request from Reserve Bank of India, PCI engaged a working group to review the existing set of payment processing icons and presented a proposal, on March 14, 2022, to standardize the icons. The title of the proposal is Project Pratima. The objective of the proposal is to make the icons easier, through standardisation, for customers, including the visually impaired, to interpret. Further, reacting to a specific request on comments raised on Project Pratima in the blind graduate's forum, the working group has also proposed a separate study to re-look at the use case devices available, and other modes of communication such as voice and haptic feedback. The PCI continues to engage with RBI on these issues.     PCI Joins Digital Payments Awareness Campaign One of the key objectives of the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund Scheme (PIDFS), created by Reserve Bank of India, is to increase the number of POS and digital acceptance networks manyfold in the country. As part of its activities to attain this goal, PIDFS celebrated the Digital Payments Awareness Week, March 7-11, 2022, with a public campaign on the theme titled "Outreach and Availability of Digital payments". Taking a proactive initiative on this, Payments Council of India (PCI) supported the PIDFS campaign, working collaboratively with the creative teams of Visa and Mastercard. The PCI-led initiative was widely supported by its members who undertook public awareness campaigns at their end during the awareness week.     PCI Supports RBIH Swanari TechSprint Initiative Payments Council of India supported, through communication outreach, the RBI Innovation Hub's (RBIH) Swanari TechSprint hackathon initiative scheduled April 18-22, 2022. The hackathon will bring together financial service providers, innovators, and subject matter experts to collaborate and ideate how Indian women's inclusion in digital financial services may be increased manyfold.     FCC Meeting with RBI Fintech Convergence Council (FCC), which functions under the aegis of IAMAI, hosted a meeting with Shri Ayyappan Nair, General Manager, Financial Stability Unit, Reserve Bank of India, on March 15, 2022. The broad topic of discussion was the fintech ecosystem in India, which included specific issues such as risks posed by financial intermediation using technology.     IAMAI Celebrates International Women's Day Presenting Powerful Female Voices Celebrating the International Women's Day, IAMAI, in collaboration with Taboola, organised a webinar, on March 8, 2022. Women leaders from the advertising and publishing landscape shared experiences of their journeys in the professional world. Besides discussing the challenges of breaking down the glass ceiling in a male-dominated industry, they also spoke about ways and means of career development and empowering others. Kalli Purie, Vice Chairperson, India Today Group, Monaz Todywalla, CEO, PHD Media, Priti Murthy, President GroupM Services, Suparna Singh, President, NDTV Group and Sneha Karwat, Director, Agency Development, Taboola spoke addressed the webinar.     Future of Algo Trading Traders and portfolio managers face a major challenge in the field of data access and usage because of the enormous volume of data they are required to handle. Teams of specialists and programmers have to be engaged for testing data, preparing datasets, managing and carrying out final analyses. This is a time-consuming process and it also impacts the quality and reliability of results. To discuss how such challenges may be addressed, IAMAI, in collaboration with Refinitiv, organised a virtual roundtable on "Future of Algo Trading: Revolutionizing Backtesting Data", on March 9, 2022, involving senior executives and experts in the sector. Participants at the roundtable discussed at length issues such as the advantages of algo backtesting, the importance of using in-point data to avoid bias in backtesting, its prerequisites and important steps that should be considered before selecting datasets. Speakers at the roundtable included Jatin Patni, Director, EY, Aniket Patni, Market Development, Refinitiv, Prashant Bisht, Vice President, Investment, True Beacon, and Vipul Divyanshu, Founder and CTO, Streak AI Technologies.     Transforming Customer Experience with Rich-Media, One Conversation at a Time IAMAI, in partnership with Bobble AI, hosted a virtual roundtable titled "Transforming Customer Experiences with Rich-Media, One Conversation at a Time" on March 10, 2022. With evolving trends and user preferences, human-bot conversations need to adapt to the changing environment. As Conversational AI matures, the industry's focus shifts from creating smart and efficient chatbots to truly human-like customer interactions. Creating customer interactions, which are engaging, has been in the spotlight for a while now, with 'delightfulness' being at the crux of any human-bot interaction. In this scenario industry experts presented their insights around conversational media and other innovations transforming the customer journey. Speakers at the event discussed how brands were leveraging the latest trends in conversational AI to revamp their chatbot workflows. Disha Shah, Bobble AI, Gaurav Jain, WOW Skin Science, Neil Barman, Yellow.ai, Pranshu Rastogi, Jubilant Foodworks, Rajwant Sinha, Clovia, Samriddh Dasgupta, Heads Up for Tails, Saumya Chopra, OLX India, Surabhee Gupta, Lenskart, Uddhav Mishra, mCaffaine, and Zenul Jinwala, Krish Technolabs addressed the roundtable.     Elevate Customer Engagements with Better Deliverability & AI IAMAI, in collaboration with Moengage, organised a roundtable at Bengaluru on March 11, 2022. The theme of the roundtable was "Elevate Customer Engagements with Better Deliverability and AI". Three main objectives of hosting the roundtable were a) to understand how the ecosystem of the whole consumer engagement was growing and expanding with AI, b) to learn, cross-learn and share expertise and strategies with influential change-makers, and c) to enable the participants to network with like-minded people and explore business opportunities. Key points discussed during the roundtable included creating customer-centric experiences by shifting focus from campaign management to insights-led engagement, optimizing engagements by enhancing deliverability across mobile messages and emails, and putting AI at the frontline of every customer-interaction. Abhilash Rao, Head of New Initiatives, APNA, Anuradha Agarwal, Founder, Multibhashi, Hitesh Sharma, Head, Customer Experience, Onsurity, Nitesh Shende, Vice President, Product Experience, Porter.in, and Phaneesh Gururaj, CTO, Koo India, were among the key speakers at the roundtable.     Meeting with Indic Language Publishers The Indic Language Subcommittee under the Digital Advertising Council organised a meeting with various Indic language publishers. Several projects to promote adoption of Indic languages were discussed during the meeting, including case studies on campaigns in Indic languages and evangelizing them with the advertisers. In the meeting members were also updated about activities of the Local Language Glossary Project and Landscape Report on Indic Languages in India.     Meeting on Outstanding Payments to Publishers The Billing and Payment Process (BNPP) Subcommittee conducted its monthly meeting. In the meeting the issue of outstanding payments to publishers by IAMAI and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) members was discussed.     Validation of Performance Marketing Activities The Affiliate Subcommittee held a meeting with affiliate members to work on creating a framework for validation of performance marketing activities. Various initiatives such as a list of hygiene factors for advertisers, validation period according to types of campaigns and improper implementation of tracking mechanisms on advertisers' part were discussed.     Meeting on Standardization in Advertising Services Sector IAMAI was invited to a meeting organized by the Advertising Services Subcommittee of the Bureau of Indian Standards. In the meeting members presented their views regarding possible areas for standardization in advertising services sector. The members highlighted that the standards for advertising services had evolved over the years and developed into robust guidelines and procedures through experience and wide consultation with industry members. The committee decided to take forward the subject of viewership and discuss in detail with IAMAI.